Abyssinian Fund Helps Finance Construction
Project in Ethiopia

The Abyssinian Fund is committed to reducing poverty in Ethiopia, where coffee farmers make less than $500 per year. Most farmers don’t have access to the training and equipment necessary to grow great quality coffee. The Abyssinian Fund partners with farming communities supplying training and equipment that allows them to produce some of the world’s best coffee.

Their first coffee farming community is Chaffee Jenette, made up of over 700 male and female farmers and 3,000 other local residents. Chaffee Jenete has been growing coffee for over 200 years!

Tadesse Meskela, who is in charge of the distribution for all of Chaffee Jenette's coffee, released $95,500 to the coffee farming community for their coffee purchase and crucial road construction. President of The Abyssinian Fund and Minister at Abyssinian Baptist Church, Reverend Nicholas Richards along with Abyssinian Fund staff in Ethiopia, held several meetings with Meskela encouraging him to provide $41,000 for the completion of the road leading from the village area.

The agreement by Mr. Meskela to finance these projects is an innovative and important step forward in aiding the farming communities and general public in Ethiopia. The dangerous, rocky terrain makes it difficult for villagers to reach the nearest city center, Deder, where the health clinic and central marketplace are located, 14 miles away. The road construction is the main priority for the village communities who understand that this funding will help save lives and money. Farmers rely on four-wheel drive trucks for trips to Deder and normally pay a high premium for this transportation.

The Abyssinian Fund has been heavily advocating for the road construction project, negotiating with Meskela to provide funding. Paved roads will help cut-down on the amount of deaths that occur due to lack of transportation to the health clinic; patients are usually carried on a stretcher the 14 miles and often die en route. The road is also crucial for transporting goods, especially coffee outside the village where farmers make a higher profit.

The Abyssinian Fund provides training and modern tools to coffee farmers in rural Chaffee Jenette. Through training, coffee farmers increase the quality of the coffee they harvest, gain access to buyers who will pay premium prices and then invest 10% of their profit into clean water, health and education projects. This is a sustainable method for enhancing their quality of life and reducing poverty in Ethiopia.

For more information about The Abyssinian Fund please visit www.abyfund.org

Tasty and refreshing drinks are one of the best ways to beat the heat during the summertime. That’s why Teavana has created the irresistible Fruitful Iced Tea gift set. This new collection of teas embodies the essence of summer with six fun and fruity blends: Acai Matetini Mate Tea®, Blueberry Bliss® Rooibos Tea, Wild Orange Blossom Herbal Tea, Opus Rouge Rooibos Tea®, Pineapple Kona Pop® Herbal Tea, and Strawberry Lemonade Herbal Tea. The gift set also comes with six tins to store the teas and 12 oz. of German rock sugar. Tea lovers can stay hydrated all summer long mixing the blends together and finding new flavors.

For serving this delicious new collection of teas, Teavana has launched several stylish types of tea ware. Perhaps the most elegant of which is the new Tristan Infuser Pitcher. Featuring a borosilicate glass construction to resist heat, this 64 oz. pitcher has a built-in stainless steel infuser that can be removed once your tea has finished steeping. Its modern aesthetics and functional design make it perfect for serving Fruitful Iced Tea to your family and friends on hot summer days.

Of course, what would summer be without summer vacations? Just because you are traveling, doesn’t mean you can’t have your tea and drink it too. The Tea Voyager Travel Kit makes it easy to bring your tea along with you wherever you go. The set includes two short tins, a tall tin that doubles as storage for the included stainless steel infuser stick (which also serves as a tea scoop), and a neoprene case to carry it all.

Naturally, an important part of brewing perfect batches of tea is keeping the tea leaves fresh. Teavana already offers a robust selection of tea tins, but these two designs for the summer are quite trendy. Teavana’s new stoneware tea canisters come in Chocolate and White colors. The Chocolate canisters all have unique coloring due to the special reactive glaze. Both colors feature an Acacia wood lid – which also has natural color variations. Inspired by 1950’s ceramic styles, these canisters will store your tea and look great while doing it.

These innovative products are just a sampling of what Teavana has in store for summer. Shop for tea and tea accessories online by visiting Teavana.com, where you can see the full collection of summer teas and tea accessories.

Sweet Drops from Sweet Leaf
For the Sweet Taste of Sugar Without the Calories!

Three refreshing new summer flavors of SweetLeaf® Liquid Stevia Sweet Drops™ are hitting the store shelves this month.

Wisdom Natural Brands®, the parent company of SweetLeaf Stevia® Sweetener, will offer three refreshing new summer flavors as part of their zero-calorie, zero-carbohydrate SweetLeaf® Liquid Stevia product line. Coconut, Watermelon and Cola are the new additions to the SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia Sweet Drops family, bringing the total number of available flavors to 17.

The three new flavors will also sport updated dropper bottle packaging that makes the natural sweetener easier to find on store shelves. The new flavors will be available in conventional and natural grocery stores nationwide. SweetLeaf Sweet Drops will also be offered online at www.buywisdom.com.

Made with USDA-certified organic stevia leaf extract and natural flavors, SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia Sweet Drops can be added to foods or beverages—from yogurt to oatmeal, water to coffee, sauces to smoothies—for sweet, sugar-free flavor.

Adding Cola to sparkling water creates a healthier soda, for instance, while a few drops of Watermelon in yogurt gives a fruit twist to a favorite, and the new Coconut flavor perks up coffee, tea and most everything else. Once only available as a dietary supplement, SweetLeaf Sweet Drops now qualifies for being classified as a tabletop sweetener!

All 17 flavors of Sweet Drops come in easy-to-use dropper bottles, so consumers can add as much or as little as their taste buds desire. With an average of 288 servings (except Cola flavor) per 2 fl. oz. bottle, Sweet Drops also offer great value in addition to a delicious sweet taste.

Along with the three new flavors, Sweet Drops are available in Lemon Drop, Valencia Orange, Berry, Chocolate Raspberry, English Toffee, Vanilla Crème, Hazelnut, Peppermint, Root Beer, Grape, Apricot Nectar, Chocolate, Cinnamon, and SteviaClear® for the sweet taste of sugar without the calories.

Vanilla Crème is a customer favorite, and the Chocolate stevia drops were achieved a high 93 out of 100 possible award points for “intense, versatile taste that goes a long way with just a drop or two” by food trends editor, Today Show correspondent, and “supermarket guru” Phil Lempert.

Chocolate Sweet Drops were also just named the World’s Best Consumer Product made from Stevia by the World Stevia Organisation in Paris, France. Sweet Drops are available online at www.buywisdom.com or at natural foods and select food stores.

Joe: The Coffee Book A full-color celebration of coffee from the popular
New York chain, Joe

“Coffee nerds, rejoice: here's a book on coffee from New York coffee shop joe. Without getting "too political or preachy about it," the book promises to explain the coffee process from bean to brew and hopefully get you making better cups of coffee”. –Eater.com

This beautiful, hip guide to the world of coffee is brought to you by New York City’s popular connoisseur coffee chain joe. Join owners (and siblings) Jonathan and Gabrielle Rubinstein as they welcome you into the tight-knit international specialty coffee community of committed growers, buyers, roasters, entrepreneurs, baristas, and drinkers. Their mission: to source, purchase, roast, serve, and drink the world’s finest coffees.

By explaining how exemplary coffee is produced—and revealing the actual brewing techniques used to create great coffee at home—this fully illustrated book provides all you need to explore and enjoy the vast world of coffee.

“I certainly don’t want to get too political or preachy about it, but I hope that with the next cup of coffee you consume, you put just a bit more thought into where it came from and think about all of the people who had a hand in getting it into your cup.” —Amanda Byron, vice president and director of coffee at Joe.

Tea Master Training Slated for Vancouver

Aspiring tea aficionados will be gathering in beautiful Vancouver, B.C., Canada, in September to take part in the American Tea Masters Association's Tea Mastery Certification Course™ for achieving the prestigious Certified Tea Master™ designation once the training is successfully completed.

The two-part program includes an initial 3-Day Comprehensive Tea Mastery Course held on-site at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown from September 7th to 9th. It will be followed by the 14-Week Tea Mastery TeleCourse involving home study, numerous tea evaluations, and weekly group online conference sessions for sharing experiences and answering questions. The program offers the high level of focus and support needed to gain the competence and confidence to serve as a tea master or tea sommelier at any distinguished restaurant, hotel or tea court in the country, or start one's own successful enterprise.

Registrants will experience some of the most exquisite and often rarest loose-leaf teas from around the world. The training will also include sessions on: Health Benefits of Tea; Starting or Expanding a Tea Business; Attracting and Retaining Customers; Effective Use of Social Media and Press Releases; Web Site Concepts that Work; and Valuable Guest Service Skills.

The program is designed for and will benefit restaurant, hotel, and tea court managers, chefs, wine sommeliers, tea aficionados, industry suppliers, and others who wish to incorporate tea mastery into their daily lives or current profession, as well as anyone seriously interested in a career as a tea master.

The training will be led by Certified Tea Master Sylvana Leveque, who will make the event an especially memorable experience for everyone. Levesque is responsible for directing the Canadian arm of the association, and is an expert on Japanese teas and tea blending.

The Tea Mastery Certification Course™ is open to a maximum of 10 participants. Seating is limited. Tuition for the complete training program is currently $2,475 for association members. It will be increasing to $2,975 on August 1st. Additional information is available on the association's web site at www.TeaMasters.org.

INO Launches the World’s First Fruit Coffee

UK based INO has created a world exclusive – a unique instant coffee that incorporates organic fruit combined with coffee beans. They have fused these ingredients together in a new process they call Superfangled™ to create World’s first Fruit Coffee and a new sub-category in coffee. It contains 100% natural ingredients and has no artificial flavoring and the range so far includes, Apple Coffee, Strawberry Coffee and Pineapple Coffee.

“This exciting and groundbreaking product as well as the creation of a new sub-category is set to revolutionize the hot beverage sector”, says Ali Ataei, Co-founder and CEO of INO and creator of the innovative fruit coffee concept. He believes the way coffee is consumed in the UK is about to change dramatically.

You can enjoy coffee with a twist, wherever and whenever. It’s new, it’s audacious, it’s a two fingered victory salute and air punch rolled into one. It’s a deliverance from the normal realism of bland tasting coffee. INO can be made with milk & sugar just like normal instant coffee, however it does not leave any lingering coffee breath, which we believe will completely shake up the hot beverage market.

According to the company, INO’s Fruit Coffee is smooth and refreshing where regular coffee’s bitter aftertaste is now replaced with a stimulating and inspirational fruit taste. Consequently, INO can even be drunk without the necessity of adding milk or sugar which is also great news for lactose intolerant people or those who are diabetic. Containing just 9.5 calories per serving, our fruit coffee is sugar free, fat free and contains no salt.

It is available in the UK as single serve stick packs with a selection of exciting mixes to choose from. These include Apple Coffee, Pineapple Coffee and Strawberry Coffee, which are packed into innovative and convenient packaging. They can be carried either in your shirt pocket or handbag so you will never be without INO.

So far, there has been a huge investment into the project which has been painstakingly developed, researched and approved by a number of first class UK agencies. These include the Engine Group (the UK’s leading integrated Marketing communications agency), DCRM (Qualitative research consultancy), HPI (the UK’s largest independent research company) and Nielsen Bases (World’s top authority on volumetric research).

INO will benefit from both BRC and IFS production standards as well as having official Rainforest Alliance certification which falls within our ethical philosophy and corporate responsibility. In a recent press release the company stated that “the response to our exceptional product, inventive packaging and quirky brand image received via our website, social media platform and sampling events has been overwhelming.”

INO has exciting plans going forward with the exclusive launch through our INO online store and additional online outlets where their products can be purchased. They are also planning the launch of INO into UK retail stores and supermarkets in October 2012.

“UK consumers have witnessed the coffee culture revolution in the coffee shops over the past 15 years and got used to premium quality coffee as a result. In recent times, not only do they want more variety, they also want the same coffee experience with added convenience, whilst enjoying all the same benefits whether in the comfort of the home, office or on the go. Now INO finally has the answer. Our Fruit Coffee has reinvigorated the market thanks to our unbeatable quality, distinctive variety and having the freedom to enjoy your coffee experience at an affordable cost wherever you are,” adds Ataei.

As an introduction to the coffee world, INO held a highly successful soft launch at the Caffe Culture exhibition, which took place on the 16th and 17th of May at London’s Olympia Exhibition Centre.

“We had a phenomenal response and buzz from coffee shop owners who want to take advantage of this incredible opportunity to serve something new like INO Fruit Coffee in their premises and to sell our funky retail packs at the till to generate extra revenue”, he went on to say, “We are organizing sampling events over the next few months at London’s top shopping malls, public venues and exhibitions across the UK with our unique popup café, where you will be able to sample the exclusive taste of the world’s first Fruit Coffee”. Find out more at www.inoholics.com.